The support structure for the trafficking industry includes both criminal and noncriminal businesses and practices that facilitate human trafficking. This support structure is essential to the trafficking networks, providing advertising, transportation, financial services, and spaces in which they operate. Because facilitators are rarely if ever prosecuted, they face low risk.

In some cases, businesses are aware of their involvement in trafficking, and the profits they generate outweigh reservations they may have about their role. In other cases, businesses are unaware and find it difficult to know which of their customers are traffickers.

Common facilitators on which traffickers rely include:

• Hotels and Motels
• Landlords
• Airlines, bus and rail companies
• Advertisers
  • Online websites like Craigs List
  • Phone books
  • Alternative Newspapers (and some mainstream newspapers)
• Banks and other financial services companies

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